Song of Infinity
by 782
Summary: Note: ABANDONED.
1. The World in Plain Sight

**A/N:** WARNING: I deal with fantasy elements (things like magical owls, broomsticks, goblins, et cetera) on a strictly necessary basis: if it is necessary for the plot, or is extrapolated from other fantasy elements which are necessary for the plot, I shall keep it; if not, I shall not. If you want a full list of the canon concepts which do not exist in _Song of Infinity_, please send a private message (PM) to me, or just review.

If there are any concepts or parts of the story that you do not understand, PM me.

Constructive criticism is, of course, welcomed, though 'I h8 u coz u suk' isn't. No-one ought to emulate _My Immortal_ here.

If anyone spots a plot hole in _Song of Infinity_—and if you do, please review or PM me—I shall,

a) if I think that it isn't really a plot hole, PM you with my reasoning as to why it makes sense.  
>b) if it is intentional and will be resolved later, also PM the person in question, explaining this.<br>c) if it is a real plot hole which I didn't consider, correct it, change what has already been written so that I may explain it later, or abandon the story.

**(P.S. From now on, all author's notes are in** **bold.)**

**This is a rewrite of _Song of Infinity_. Therefore do not expect to see exactly the same things as last time. Take nothing—and by that I mean NOTHING—for granted, except that there will be some similarity to canon and the original _Song of Infinity_.  
><strong>

* * *

><p><span>The World in Plain Sight<span>

Petunia Dursley née Evans was generally regarded as an ordinary woman. This could not be further from the truth.

Petunia was married to Vernon Dursley, and they had two sons: eleven-year-old Dudley and ten-year-old Harry. Dudley was theirs by birth, but Harry was not, though they pretended that he was.

Harry had been given to them a little less than eleven years ago, in the evening of the 1st November 1981. The giver had been a big, tough man with the look of bodyguard named Mr Hagrid; he had not given his first name. Mr Hagrid had entered their house as they were putting Dudley to sleep, carrying Harry—a baby with an odd, lightning-bolt-shaped scar upon his forehead and no other identification—in a bundle of blankets. He had not been there for long, but he had given them a letter, which all four of them had memorised by now, and left almost immediately, casting shifty glances everywhere.

The envelope had said, _To Mr Vernon and Madam Petunia Dursley, No.4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey_. How odd, they'd thought. Generally, people used 'Mrs' instead of 'Madam' nowadays.

Inside, it had said, _Dear Mr and Madam Dursley,_

_This letter accompanies Harry, a boy born on the 31st July 1980. I would tell you the identities of his parents, if not for the fact that you would never believe me. However—and I swear this upon my honour—he is closely related to you by blood._

_I would not normally make this decision, but there are many people who wish Harry to die. These are the followers of an immensely powerful criminal leader whose name I will not tell you, for your own safety. This leader is dead, but his subordinates want revenge, for Harry's family played an instrumental role in the criminal leader's death. These people are still active and unimaginably powerful. You may rest assured that you are unknown to them, but Harry is most definitely not. If the circumstances of Harry being given to you are released to the public, they will investigate, and he will be murdered, even if they are unsure if he is the one whom they seek._

_In order to prevent this event, I have chosen to place Harry with you, trusting that you will treat him well. In the future, my representatives—possibly including Mr Hagrid, who has helpfully agreed to give this letter and Harry to you—but possibly not—will contact you once more, and you will know them by the password 'dandelion', a flower that my sister loved dearly. However, if I regularly venture out to this place, I shall be seen by people who—it is imperative—must not know of this place. In the future you will know of those of whom I speak._

_I have not told you of Harry's surname for security reasons. I regret that it may pose issues with his own identity when he grows up, but it is necessary that they do not find him._

_One thing is paramount. You must not tell anybody of this, anybody at all. If they learn of him, he will die. You cannot prevent it; you cannot stop them. Your police and your government cannot help; if they learn of him, so will the people from whom my followers and I are attempting to hide him._

_I regret that I must impose this on you, but I have no other options. Please, do the right thing._

_You will not be able to contact me. Do not try._

_Yours sincerely,_

_APWBD, leader of the Order_

How could they have refused Harry now? They could have put him into an orphanage, but they'd heard many horror stories about those; Vernon had been convinced of such stories' falsehood, but Petunia had wanted to be safe.

They also hadn't trusted that this Order wasn't a criminal organisation. After all, it had made much more sense that APWBD was in fact a criminal who'd been giving Harry refuge from some mysterious battle in the underworld, perhaps among drug dealers. Nonetheless, they had decided to raise him, and soon had been glad of this, for they had found that the official records had claimed Harry to be their son.

It had taken some explaining to the neighbours—apparently, Harry had been a very shy child, so they hadn't shown him to anyone—but soon they'd become used to him, and Petunia and Vernon had done their very best to raise both Dudley and Harry as well-adjusted, normal children.

They attended the same ordinary, local primary school, and were set to attend its secondary school; both boys were preparing for Year 7. **[1]** Today it was the summer holidays, so they were resting. More importantly, it was Wednesday 31st July 1991, Harry's birthday.

Petunia was woken by the morning sunlight as it streamed in through the bedroom windows. Vernon got up almost immediately, whereas she did so at a more leisurely pace; she could never figure out how Vernon could be so sharp in the mornings, for she was always half-asleep. Vernon was already dressed as she rolled out of bed and put on her clothes. "I'm fetching the boys, OK, darling?" said Vernon.

"Mmm," mumbled Petunia. Vernon took this as assent, for he left the room. Meanwhile, Petunia brushed her teeth and stumbled down the staircase to make breakfast.

Several minutes later, a dark-haired, skinny, bespectacled boy echoed the action, yawning tremulously. At the table, Vernon was waiting for him with a large smile. "Good morning, birthday boy!" he said brightly. "Mum's prepared your favourite breakfast, just for you."

Harry beamed as the smell of bacon and scrambled eggs wafted to his nose. It was very rare that Petunia could be persuaded to make bacon and eggs; normally, she insisted that he and Dudley have cereal. "Thanks!"

"G'mornin," said a blonde, blue-eyed boy with a yawn as he wandered down the stairs, dressed in his pyjamas. Petunia and Vernon repeated the greeting. "Happy birthday, Harry."

"Thanks, Big D," said Harry, grinning from ear to ear. "Guess what? We've got bacon."

"Bacon?" said Dudley, suddenly alert. "Mum, I love you!"

"For my personality, I'm sure," said Petunia dryly, but neither of them paid her attention. Vernon put an arm around her shoulders and smiled. She did too, and the boys chatted about their toy cars. Dudley was free of this, but Harry had the irritating habit of leaving toy cars all over the house, where everybody else often tripped on them. No matter how hard they tried, Petunia and Vernon could never persuade him out of it.

Once breakfast was finished, they went to the living room, where Vernon had stored plenty of presents. Harry received several presents from his grandparents (on Vernon's side only; Petunia's parents were both dead) and various family friends, who would be meeting them in the evening, though the boys had probably forgotten that by now. Dudley provided Harry with a Lego set (Petunia's immediate reaction was to think 'not another one'; Harry had the same habit with Lego bricks as he did with toy cars), and he was probably pleased that Harry graciously accepted the present. Dudley always bought Harry Lego, and this time he had forgotten to buy anything until yesterday.

Petunia and Vernon's present was more planned. They gave him a bicycle, as well as informing him of their plans to visit London Zoo today. After profuse thanks, this visit was embarked on.

While he drove the Dursleys' stately Volkswagen, Vernon began a lively discussion with Petunia about the Conservative Party, mainly consisting of statements such as "The Tories **[2]** are—" (a hasty look in the direction of the children—) "unpleasant people" and "We don't like the Tories." The boys, who were used to this, ignored the discussion completely. Petunia was embarrassed about it, but knew that she was prone to be forceful in her arguments, and that this daunted the children, who knew of their own lack of knowledge regarding politics, from participating.

"Bugger!" Vernon swore as a blue Fiat raced into the lane which went in the opposite direction, overtook them, and swerved back into their lane in front of them, coming so dangerously close to a crash that Vernon had had to pull up .

"What's that, Dad?" asked Harry innocently. Dudley leant forward, interested.

"Never mind," said Vernon hastily.

They arrived at London Zoo, and bought Dudley and Harry vanilla ice-cream. Petunia's sharp eyes spotted a map of the zoo, to which they walked, and Vernon proposed, "What do you want to see first, boys?"

"The tigers!" said Harry immediately, and Dudley bobbed his head in whole-hearted agreement.

"You saw the tigers last time, and the time before, and the time before that," Petunia pointed out. "Don't you want to see anything else?"

"No," said Harry obstinately. "I want to see the tigers. Now!"

And so indeed they went off to the tiger exhibit. Unfortunately, the magnificent big cats were doing what many humans would do on this lovely, sunny Wednesday morning—they were fast asleep.

The children were devastated, but Vernon soon consoled them by permitting them a visit to the leopard exhibit. Leopards were the next-best things to tigers, and Dudley and Harry watched intently as they prowled around the exhibit, their stunning golden-yellow coats shimmering like molten metal in the sunlight.

After the leopards, the children watched some remarkably human-like gorillas and some big, floppy-eared elephants before they went off to their second-favourite attraction: the reptile house. After making a polite enquiry to a young man examining an African fat-tailed gecko **[3]** nearby, they rushed to find the longest snake of them all: a big boa constrictor. The snake's sleek scales were yellowish-orange, and the boys stared fascinatedly at the black blotches on its skin.

"Ben lied," Dudley said suddenly. "It's not slimy at all."

"Not at all," said the young man who'd been studying the gecko, overhearing. "Reptiles don't have slimy skin; their scales are actually very dry. Your friend Ben was probably thinking of amphibians, creatures such as frogs and newts."

"Why are amphibians slimy?" said Harry.

The young man proceeded to explain something about moisture and blood capillaries. Petunia, who already knew this, stopped listening and began to look at the gecko. For a brief moment, she thought that it was sticking its tongue out at her, but it had to be her imagination.

Ten minutes later, she and Vernon successfully procured the fascinated children from the young man, who'd apparently decided to give them a crash course in biology involving some things which Petunia was sure that she hadn't learnt even at A-level.

"Thank you for entertaining the children, sir," said Vernon.

"My pleasure, sir," the young man responded, and went back to examining his good friend the gecko. This still appeared to amaze him, despite currently lying down and not doing very much.

After leaving the zoo, they had a delightful lunch at a local Italian restaurant. Petunia, Vernon and the children walked back to the car, well-fed and thus in a good mood, and they all drove back home. Vernon was so happy that he did not even shout expletives at the next bad driver.

The children bounded to the brightly painted blue door to their house, and Petunia and Vernon followed at a calmer pace. Petunia took out her keys, inserted them into the lock, turned it—

—and froze.

The grey-eyed, tall, bald man in medieval-seeming robes who was reclining on the kitchen sofa looked up at them. "I am glad that you have at last arrived," he said irritably, in perfect Queen's English: he sounded like he'd been to Eton **[4]**. "I have been waiting for you for the entirety of today. And by the way, 'dandelion'."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: In every chapter where I think it necessary, I shall place notes like these at the bottom.  
><strong>

**1. In England, Year 7 contains children aged 11-12; it is the equivalent of 'sixth grade' in the USA.  
>2. Tory: common British slang for a member of the Conservative Party.<br>3. This lizard does, in fact, exist.  
>4. A British school for the extremely upper-class.<br>**


	2. The Good Professor

**A/N: Warning: ALMOST ALL OF THIS CHAPTER IS EXPOSITION. If you aren't interested in that, I can sum up the whole thing in one sentence at the very end.**

**I'm not putting the sentence right here because I don't want to spoil the chapter for people who do want to read it.  
><strong>

* * *

><p><span>The Good Professor<span>

Harry, Dudley and their parents almost fell over with shock. The tall man made a vexed gesture. "Well?" he said. "Do come in."

"You can't have them!" their father managed to say, stepping protectively in front of both Harry and Dudley. "They're not going back to your gang!"

"'Gang'?" said the tall man delicately, wrinkling his nose. "Oh dear, Professor Dumbledore has given you quite the wrong impression. The Order of the Phoenix most certainly is not a 'gang'. Now please come in. This information is sensitive; one cannot shout it to the rooftops."

"How do we know that you aren't trying to get us alone to kidnap Harry?" said their mother suspiciously.

The tall man sighed. "I have no reason to kill you, and I know the password Professor Dumbledore gave you. Now, I beg of you, enter."

The family did so, closing the door. Harry's parents were still staring warily at the tall man, and Harry noticed that they had positioned themselves so closely to him and Dudley that they could grab them and run.

"Excellent. My name is Professor Cuthbert Binns, member of the Order of the Phoenix, and I am a wizard."

"Be serious," said their father.

"I assure you, I do not jest." From his pocket Professor Binns drew a thin, straight stick of reddish wood about the length of a normal ruler. He then took an ordinary-looking pebble from the pocket of his robes. _Why on Earth would he have a supply of pebbles?_ thought Harry, and was rewarded with the answer as Professor Binns pointed the reddish stick and chanted, "_Transmutare_!" **[1]**

Within a blink of an eye, the pebble was no longer stone. Instead, with exactly the same shape, there was a little block of green stained glass on the table.

"Holy cow," breathed Harry, utterly intent. Had he not been sitting down he would have staggered, so momentous was this revelation. _Magic exists! There is magic! All the fairy tales might be true after all!_

"Transfiguration, like most magic, is truly permanent," said Professor Binns. "This stained glass is as real as any other. But international law forbids me from giving proof of transfiguration to any Muggle—that is, non-wizard—so _transmutare_." He flicked his magical wand (what else could it be?) towards the block of glass, and then, instantly, there was just a normal pebble.

"You must all be rich," said Dudley.

Professor Binns barked a laugh, and Dudley shrank into a corner, dismayed. "Hardly. It is true that there is less poverty in the wizardly **[2]** world than in this one, but it still exists. All that means is that things which can be produced by transfiguration have less value—it's very difficult to transfigure anything into silver or gold, which is why they've been valuable since before the Statute of Secrecy."

Harry felt like he had been hit hard on the head. His father was having a perfectly normal-seeming conversation about economics, as he often did, but it was the economics of another planet, this 'wizardly world'.

"How do you get between the wizardly world and Earth?" he ventured.

Professor Binns stared at him for a moment, then laughed. "The terminology is apparently confusing," he said. "The term 'wizardly world' refers to those areas of Earth that are hidden from Muggles by wizard-kind. We are not Martians."

Harry flushed and looked away. He empathised with Dudley, who now shot him a supportive smile, though Harry had not done the same when Dudley had been the one to ask a stupid question.

"Now I must tell you some basic facts about the wizardly world," said Professor Binns. "You won't be taught this at Hogwarts—it is common knowledge—so you will simply have to know—and being History of Magic teacher, I am highly qualified to tell you."

"Who named it _that_?" said Harry's father. Neither the adults nor the children managed to suppress their sniggering.

"The Four Founders," sighed Professor Binns, "and yes, they were probably drunk. Nevertheless, Hogwarts is the best school in the Empire."

"Er, sir, I have a question," said Harry.

"Ask it," said the wizard in a long-suffering voice.

"Why are you telling us all this?"

"Is it verily not obvious?" said Professor Binns. "You are a wizard."

Harry would have claimed that he was joking if not for the gold pebble. To tell the truth, he had suspected that Professor Binns was getting at this point. But he did say, "Prove it."

Professor Binns sighed, and a dense group of many sparks flew from the end of his magical wand. "You, Mr Dursley, try to do that," he said, throwing his wand to Harry's father.

He could not.

"Madam Dursley?"

Harry's mother could not make sparks either.

"Young Mr Dursley?"

Dudley could not either, but as soon as the wand fell into Harry's hand, two weak little sparks flew from the end of it.

Then he looked around. Dudley and his parents were staring at him with mixed emotions on their faces.

"Well, congratulations, I suppose, dear," said his mother faintly.

"Charming as this is, may I continue?" said the taller wizard, regaining everybody's attention. "Wizardry was discovered in Ancient Greece. Estimates as to when vary between three- and four-thousand years ago. Either way, it was certainly fairly dominant when the Roman Republic became a superpower, as it did largely because of its well-trained, well-organised wizards—"

Harry's father interrupted, "So you expect us to believe the whole of recorded history—"

"Be silent, or I shall put a Silencing Charm upon you. Honestly, you bicker like one of my students."

His father shut up.

"The Roman Republic was the first civilisation to develop such a system, and its success continued into the time of Augustus's Roman Empire. However, the Christian holy books preached that all wizards should be killed. Considering that wizards were part of the Roman ruling classes and highly unpopular, this teaching gained strength.

When Emperor Constantine converted his empire to Christianity—"

The disdain in Professor Binns's voice was clear.

"—he assured wizard-kind that he would reject the anti-wizardly doctrine. Constantine kept his word on this, as did every other Roman Emperor. But Emperor Theodosius desecrated vast numbers of holy temples, turning them into Christian churches, and did his best to destroy the worship of the true gods. **[3]** We naturally refused to be Christian—after all, Christian dogma explicitly says 'you will not permit a witch to live'—so we built our own temples in hidden, wizard-only areas like the valley of Hogsmeade, wherein Hogwarts is.

When the Empire fell, wizard-kind lost the Roman Emperors' protection. We recovered and mixed with society, but the new rulers no longer had to obey Constantine's oath to protect us, and they believed in Christianity, which decrees that all wizards and witches (female wizards) should die."

For their own safety, Harry became extremely glad that his family were not very religious.

"It became steadily worse. They never dared to attack us directly, for fear of attempts on their lives, but few Muggle rulers dared to try to help us; those who tried, like Good King John, were demonised by Muggle historians, whereas as those who persecuted us, like Richard the Slaughterer, were remembered by Muggles as heroes. In 1692—"

"The Salem witch trials," said Harry's mother.

"—yes, the wizardly world bore witness to the worst purges that we had ever seen, on a scale far greater than Muggle history books remember. Tens of thousands of wizards were murdered. We finally decided that enough was enough, and prepared ourselves for the Statute of Secrecy, a decree which would make all Muggles forget the existence of magic.

We started by hiding the magical creatures, via the Memory Curse. Then we erased Muggle records of both us and the magical creatures. While we did this, we erased lots of the Muggle purges of wizard-kind; the occasional witch hunt could be explained away by paranoia, but not as often as witch hunts actually occurred; that might show the fact that there was some reality to magic, rather than mere superstition, like fairies.

Then, in a single move, we all retreated into the hidden settlements where our Roman temples were. This shocked the Muggles, and their world trembled, but within ten years, we had edited away all evidence of this. Later, as we carefully hid the evidence, few Muggles continued to believe in magic.

The Statute of Secrecy was made in 1692, so wizardly borders were along those lines. We did not change our nations along with the Muggle world, so our borders are drastically different to yours. But the Statute was made by the International Confederation of Wizards, which only included the fifteen wizardly states that followed the Roman religion, all of which were in Europe at least partially."

"Racism," spat Harry's mother disgustedly.

"Communication," retorted Professor Binns. "They were united by their Roman past and could not contact anybody else without alerting the Muggle governments. All of the new, wizard-only states absorbed all the client states, colonies and protectorates of their Muggle counterparts due to how few wizards there are. The fifteen nations were:"

And now he began to recite, just as someone might recite a list of the fifty states of America:

"Brandenburg-Prussia, Britain, the Central Empire (previously named the Holy Roman Empire), Denmark, the Dutch Republic, Florence, France, the Ottoman Empire, Poland-Lithuania, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Venice."

_I'll never remember those names_, Harry thought. He had heard the word 'Florence' before, but it was something to do with the night, not a country.

Professor Binns rolled out a parchment map which proclaimed that it showed 'THE 1692 WIZARDLY WORLD'. All the states, each of which was coloured differently, looked very different to today. There was no United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland; there was just the British Empire, which covered the whole British Isles and lots of places beyond. Europe's borders were completely different. France, Portugal, Russia, Spain and Switzerland were clearly recognisable, and the Central Empire was vaguely equivalent to Austria plus lots of Germany plus various other bits, but that was it. Modern Italy was split in many pieces, as was Greece, and Germany seemed to be everywhere. The modern Netherlands seemed to be split between Spain (the southern bit) and the Dutch Republic (the northern bit).

Outside Europe, things were even more bizarre. There were dots and large sections of the European states' colours in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Australasia. Antarctica was completely black, a colour which (according to the map) meant that it was not ruled by any wizardly country. Large portions of Australasia and the Americas, particularly North America, were also black, as well as Asia.

"These fifteen nations conquered and converted all other wizardly groups to the Roman religion. Then the territory of the world was split up between the ICW states; they took over Africa, the Americas, Australasia and Europe far faster than their Muggle counterparts did—the Papal states, for example, were swiftly annexed by Florence and Venice—and they took over Asia too, though the Chinese and Japanese wizards fought valiantly against them. The ICW states were utterly zealous in the pursuit of this goal—if these other wizards were not forced to obey the International Statute of Wizardly Secrecy, it would never work.

Just before the Great Campaigns, as this period is known, the Pact of Mauerberg was made among the ICW states: if any Roman-worshipping wizardly state attacks another, all Roman-worshipping wizardly states will go to war against the aggressive state. Therefore the Great Campains were a race to see who could lay claim to an area first: once one state had laid claim to it, no other could take it, but the ICW set standards for what a state needed to declare that it owned an area, so that a wizardly state could not lay claim to the entirety of Africa, for instance.

The wizardly world was, however, less brutal than the Muggle world. The ICW states never enslaved the locals or made them second-class citizens, since they weren't invading for power; they were invading to keep the Statute of Secrecy all over the world. In any state around the world, the area from which you come matters nothing. There are other prejudices—we are far from perfect—but we are free from that sort of racism, at least."

"What other prejudices?"

Professor Binns looked solemn. "I shall explain it momentarily; you have my word. Now here is a map of the modern wizardly world."

The next parchment map declared that it showed 'THE 1904 WIZARDLY WORLD'. Harry was unsure that this counted as modern, but perhaps no borders had changed between 1904 and 1991.

On this map, the European borders were exactly the same as before. However, not a single dot of territory was coloured black, except Antarctica, which apparently nobody wanted. Even the Arctic Circle was coloured the pale green of Sweden and the buttercup-yellow of Denmark. Everywhere seemed to belong to one of the ICW states except the sea and Antarctica. Harry soon found the snow-white of the British Empire. It covered the British Isles, the whole of India, practically the entire eastern half of North America, and a huge chunk of western and southern Africa. It was the second-biggest country on the map after the 'Czardom of Russia', coloured pale blue, which covered most of Asia and the whole western half of North America.

"This is the modern wizardly world," said Professor Binns, "and yes, it is true that its borders have not changed since the Pact of Segurança which ended the Great Campaigns in 1725. This is why the Pact of Mauerberg is important; ever since 1725, it has been impossible to launch a wizardly invasion anywhere, so there have not been any wars between wizardly states, though there have been civil wars within.

Of course," he added, "seeing this map might give you incorrect ideas about the wizardly world's size. There are only 358,000 people in the whole Empire—that is, the British Empire, of course, in which we all live."

"Why didn't the conquered people rebel?" said Harry's father.

"Oh," Professor Binns sighed, "buy a book—Professor Dumbledore did not send me to this house in order to give you a short history of the whole wizardly world. Now, moving on to more recent affairs, I must tell you of the Purity War."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:  
>1. "Be transmuted." (Yes, the Romans did indeed have a word for 'transmute'.)<br>2. I use 'wizardly' instead of 'wizarding' because it's pointless to use a neologism in English when there's a perfectly acceptable, real word which means the same thing.  
>3. The real Theodosius actually did destroy the Roman religion, converting lots of Roman temples to churches. I'm not saying whether that is a good or bad thing; Binns, of course, thinks it's bad, since the Bible says, 'Thou shalt not permit a witch to live'. This is where you should remember that opinions expressed by my characters AREN'T necessarily my own opinions.<strong>

******_In a world where ghosts don't exist, alive-Binns comes to No.4 Privet Drive and tells Harry and the Dursleys about magic, the wizardly world and its history before the Purity War._******


	3. The Purity War

**A/N: Warning: **ALMOST ALL OF THIS CHAPTER IS EXPOSITION. If you aren't interested in that, I can sum up the whole thing in two sentences at the very end, just as I did last chapter.****

**I'm not putting the sentence right here because I don't want to spoil the chapter for people who do want to read it.**

**The exposition largely ends here, by the way.  
><strong>

* * *

><p><span>The Purity War<span>

"The war," said the tall, bald wizard, "was fought between the Knights of Purity and the Ministry of Magic. The Knights aimed to exterminate all Muggle-borns, wizards whose parents are both Muggles. Unfortunately, this ideology—it is called blood purism—is fairly common in the wizardly world.

This is what I spoke of when I mentioned the wizardly world's prejudices: the belief that Muggle-borns are inferior to other wizards. Not all blood purists are Knights of Purity—some people think Muggle-borns to be inferior and yet have no desire to commit genocide against them—but doubtless the Knights relied on blood purists for their recruitment.

The Knights were led by the White King, an enormously powerful and charismatic wizard who claimed that the gods had sent him to make their followers, that is to say wizard-kind, inherit the planet. The war was fought from 1970 to 1981."

All four of them gasped. Harry's mother almost yelled, "You mean that while Vernon and I were alive, there was a genocidal madman trying to wipe us out, and _nobody told_—"

Professor Binns's wand slashed through the air like a whip, and Harry's mother's voice was cut off. "Be silent!" he hissed. "That is not the sort of thing that one should shout. Yes, it is true. What should the wizardly world have done? You propose that we should have revealed ourselves just as we posed a threat to the Muggle world. I daresay of all the times to do so, that would be the worst: it would guarantee a witch hunt!"

"What about a Muggle hunt?" said Harry's father quietly. "Or doesn't that matter?"

"Of course it matters," snapped Professor Binns, "but there never was one. Even the White King would never dare to attack the Muggle world without the whole might of the wizardly world behind him. If Muggles started to disappear and you declared war on the wizardly world before the White King felt ready, he would regard it as a catastrophe. He did not go around on 'Muggle hunts', as you put it. He did hunt Muggle-borns, but you couldn't have protected them." He flicked his wand towards Harry's mother. "You may now speak."

"How do you find Muggle-borns?" she asked. "How did you know Lily was one of you?"

"There are wizards called the Finders," said Professor Binns, "who are planted in the Muggle educational system. Every year, they do the wand-test that I did to you to every eight-year-old child in the British Empire's territory. All the children lose their memories of this, of course, and they simply end up thinking it was a boring lesson, but the names of the wizards among them are noted down and given to other Ministry officials. These officials find out where the Muggle-borns live and keep track of them. In your case—" now he looked at Harry— "Order members intervened; I do not know the specifics."

"How did it end?" said his father. "How did you win?"

"Magic," said Professor Binns.

"I know, of course," said Harry's father, "but—"

"I am absolutely serious; it was magic. Now I shall speak of that presently

The Empire's highest court and legislator is the Wizengamot, which is a hereditary body. Every Wizengamot seat belongs to a noble family; they are not officially lords, like those of Russia and Spain, but they might as well be. The Wizengamot refused to treat the conflict as a war instead of law enforcement, so they did not permit the Ministry, which is under their control, to form an army. Instead the Ministry had to rely on the Aurors, who are barely effective at law enforcement, let alone war.

However, there was one group that effectively opposed the Knights: a vigilante society named the Order of the Phoenix, popularly and correctly believed to be led by Professor Dumbledore.

The Order, of which I am a member, was a group of people in magical armour which covered their faces who fought the Knights whenever they struck. The Knights used magical armour too, of course; it is impossible to be an effective duellist without it."

Professor Binns was about to continue, but Dudley said slowly, "Give me a moment, Professor. You were one of these masked superheroes."

The teacher suddenly became very interested in his fingernails. "Ah… I suppose that you could put it like that." Returning to the brisk, businesslike manner of beforehand, he said, "The Order and the Knights were competent, whereas the Aurors' only advantage was their numbers, and that is practically useless against superior duellists. Due to the efforts of our many spies, the Order knew when most Knight attacks would take place."

"If you knew all about him, why didn't you just catch the White King where he was hiding?" said Harry's mother.

"We had insufficient numbers, and we could not alert the Ministry because they would be duty-bound to inform the Wizengamot. About a third of the Wizengamot actually supported the White King, and many others did not care either way; therefore the Wizengamot as a whole did as little as they could to fight him.

Until July 1980, the Order had the upper hand, but then the Knights of Purity started to slaughter people who were not Muggle-borns, and our numbers decreased; he was targeting us. There was a spy in the Order, and so the Knights were wiping us out. By late 1981, there were few Order members left. Among them were your blood parents, Harry Potter: twenty-one-year-old James Potter and his wife of the same age, Lily Potter."

His grey eyes fixed themselves directly at Harry's mother. "Née Evans."

She fainted.

"Listen, sir," said Harry's father, jumping out of his seat, "I don't know what you're playing at, bringing up—"

Professor Binns flicked his wand twice. At the first flick, his father's mouth snapped shut, and at the second, his mother's eyes fluttered open. "Vernon?" she murmured. "I had the strangest dream."

"I am afraid that this is not a dream, Madam Dursley," said Professor Binns. "Your younger sister was a Muggle-born, and she went willingly to Hogwarts and entered the wizardly world. I taught her myself. You must have known of it, though the Obliviators ensured that you remember nothing of magic."

"I never knew you had a little sister, Mum," said Dudley softly. His voice could have been accusing. It wasn't. It just held a quiet sense of betrayal.

"Lily was killed in a car accident when I was fourteen," said their mother. "She was just a little girl…" She looked up fiercely at Professor Binns. "Mum, Dad and I mourned so much…"

"If a Muggle-born wishes to enter the wizardly world and their family does not permit them to do so, the law commands that their death be faked, including to their family, and that the family forget about magic. In the overwhelming majority of cases, if the Muggle-born wishes to go, their family allows them. Given your ignorance of magic prior to this visit of mine, your parents must have not wished to let Lily go and she must have desired to."

"I would have," said Harry's mother. "I would _never_ have held her back if she wanted to go."

"If the parents, the family's supreme authority, do not permit the Muggle-born to enter the wizardly world, the whole family must be made to forget. That is the will of the Wizengamot, Madam Dursley, and that will is binding over the Empire."

"You're my aunt," said Harry, staring at his adoptive mother in shock.

"Professor Dumbledore's letter did say that you are closely related," pointed out Professor Binns, but they all ignored him.

"Yes," she said. "Is that a problem?"

"No," said Harry, "you'll always be Mum to me."

She engulfed in a fierce hug, and he inhaled the comforting, familiar scent of family.

The historian coughed lightly. Harry's mother released him, and he went back to listening to Professor Binns's story.

"On the 31st October 1981, the White King went personally to the home of your blood parents in the wizardly town of Godric's Hollow, as he often did; he tended to kill Order members personally. He murdered your parents with the Killing Curse.

To grasp the next events, you must understand that the Killing Curse is unstoppable; this is well known. Of all animals, only dragons are immune to it. Yet after murdering your parents, the White King used the Killing Curse on you."

Harry, Dudley and their parents gasped.

"For the first time in recorded history, the Killing Curse failed. It struck you on that scar on your forehead, just there—" Professor Binns pointed to Harry's scar, and his eyes lingered upon it— "and it rebounded. The White King died at his own hand, perhaps the only hand that could ever have slain him.

Professor Dumbledore soon arrived, having been alerted too late by magical precautions having been set up by him. You were taken into his custody, under his protection, and one day later, you were put into the one place which the Knights would definitely overlook: the Muggle world."

Then there was silence, deep and penetrating silence. Harry felt like he had just heard the recounting of an ancient myth. He wasn't Harry Potter, the wizardly son of two heroes, the defeater of the White King, the Boy Who Lived. He was Harry Dursley, the son of two ordinary people, not by blood but love, and he had never reflected any super-powerful curses in his life.

He knew that Professor Binns wasn't joking; since he'd discovered magic was real, Harry was in the mood to take even ludicrous-sounding things seriously. But the White King's mysterious death was unbelievable in a way in which the existence of magic was not. It seemed too… what was the phrase? _Deus ex machina_.

"Harry," said Dudley finally, "you're a superhero to the superheroes."

As soon as the silence was broken, Harry's parents were full of questions. "What danger does that put him into, and how can it be averted?" demanded his mother.

"Does he have any special obligations?" said his father.

"Lots, later and yes," said Professor Binns. "The Knights of Purity will not be pleased that you still live; your absence from the wizardly world has caused rumours that perhaps the Boy Who Lived did not live past his first few years. They know that you survived the White King's attack—you were shown to the wizardly press at that point—but for all that the Knights know, you could be dead now.

But you will not be unprotected, for the Order of the Phoenix will constantly be at your side; Professor Dumbledore is devoted to your protection. Your very existence is a symbol of the equality he stands for, since your blood mother was a Muggle-born, making you a half-blood, yet you accomplished what no pure-blood could do. Also, though Muggle money is useless in the wizardly world, you are far from poor, thanks to your blood father. The Potters are a Wizengamot family."

"Excuse me," said Harry, "how much did my blood father—" he didn't think of that man as 'Dad'; 'Dad' was the man who had taken him in and raised him, not a wizard— "have, in pounds?"

"There is no exchange rate," said Professor Binns. "Wizards view Muggle money as meaningless."

"How much does a small house cost?" said Harry's father.

"750 Galleons, I'd imagine."

"Two-hundred-thousand pounds, or so **[1]**," said his father thoughtfully. "From there, it's eight-hundred over three **[2]** pounds per one of these Galleons, that would be 267 or so pounds sterling per Galleon."

Harry looked at his father for a long moment and wondered whether he was human. "How—"

"Later," said his father, "if wizards won't teach you mathematics, they're a hopeless failure at life. So what did my brother-in-law have, in Galleons?"

"Fifty-thousand Galleons," said Professor Binns.

"Congratulations, Harry," said his father, "you're the proud owner of thirteen or fourteen million pounds, appro…"

But Harry did not hear the rest of his father's sentence, having already passed out.

He was woken in his chair as two syllables drifted away into the air. "Ugh," he groaned. His head ached, and his vision was swimming. "Dad, I had—" He remembered. "It wasn't a dream, was it?"

"No, Mr Potter, it indeed was not," came the dry voice of Professor Binns as the wizard's face came into view. The name 'Potter' still seemed unfamiliar until he thought about it more carefully. Films had left Harry under the impression that one was supposed to naturally know one's real name as soon as it was spoken, but life did not seem to work like that. "Now get up. Have I yet told you about Diagon?"

"No," they chorused.

"Ah. Well, Diagon is the capital of, and largest settlement in, the wizardly British Empire."

"How many people are there?" asked Dudley.

"Nine-thousand in Diagon and about 2.5 million in the wizardly world."

"In which case," their father put in, "there are over three times as many people in London as in the entire wizardly world."

"Yes, yes," said Professor Binns testily. "Now I must pose you a crucial offer, Mr Potter. You have two options. One: that you all lose your memories of magic. You will continue to be a perfectly normal family, and you will live as a Muggle for all your life, in this world. Two: that you accept the Order of the Phoenix's offer and go back to the wizardly world. You will still be able to visit your family often, such as in the holidays—Hogwarts is a boarding school, you see—but you will spend most of the year away from them.

I must warn you, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you do not attend wizardly school, the Order of the Phoenix will 'confess' that you were, as rumour suggests, killed by residual damage from the Killing Curse, not long after the White King's death. If you do, it will be utterly impossible to keep quiet again, in which case you will have no choice but to become a wizard; most people would have a choice, but sheer public pressure will force the Wizengamot to keep you in the wizardly world—unless, that is, you are believed to be dead.

I daresay you already know which decision I would advise. But Professor Dumbledore believes in choices, so he will let you decide your own fate. There is no third option; you are either the Boy Who Lived or a Muggle. In—" he checked a pocket-watch— "three minutes, another Order member will arrive, who is a trained Obliviator for the Ministry. Either you will go to Diagon, or wizards of all kinds will never bother you again."

"That's a bit of a big decision to force on an eleven-year-old," said Harry's mother. "Harry, do you want to choose now, or do you want to wait?"

Harry was silent. At last, feeling desperately selfish, he said, "I'm sorry, Mum, I just want to see magic and dragons and unicorns and…"

"Follow your dreams, sweetheart," she said, pulling him into a hug. Dudley's big eyes watched solemnly, and Harry felt like the worst kind of traitor. _It's not my fault I'm a wizard and Dudley isn't_, he tried to tell himself, but it did not help. "Good luck. Visit us every now and then!"

"Have a good time," said his father, ruffling his perpetually messy hair.

"Professor," said Harry, turning to the tall wizard, "may my family come with me to Diagon?"

"It verily is not proper procedure. Much distrust of Muggles has been accumulated over the years, and if you three go into Diagon with the Boy Who Lived, no less, well…" Professor Binns trailed off meaningfully.

"I understand," said Harry. "But one day, Muggles and wizards will both be able to go to Diagon. Isn't that right?" he said defiantly, aware of how melodramatic he was being.

"Of course it is," said his mother, smiling fondly. "Now go out, darling, and meet the world."

Not a minute later, indigo light blazed triumphantly into being in the hallway. Before it vanished, it spat out a man with bushy black hair and a very long beard of the same colour, who landed on his feet with practised ease. He was six and a half feet tall, towering over even Professor Binns, and he wore a tattered brown set of robes which looked far less elegant than the teacher's.

"'Fessor," said the black-bearded man, inclining his head to Professor Binns. _So not all wizards sound like they went to Eton and then Oxford_, Harry thought.

"Mr Hagrid," said Harry's father unexpectedly.

"Rubeus 'Agrid, yeah," said Mr Hagrid. "'Ello, sir an' ma'am. I go' the Por'key, 'Fessor. Are we gonna go?"

"I believe so," said Professor Binns. "Mr Potter? A Portkey is a magical device which transports you instantaneously from one place to another. Be warned: it is a tad uncomfortable. Are you ready?"

Harry took a deep breath, and looked back at his family. They were smiling encouragingly at him. "Yeah."

Professor Binns clasped a hand tightly on Mr Hagrid's left arm, and held out another for Harry, who took hold of it equally tightly. Mr Hagrid fished a parchment-covered ball from his pocket, unwrapped it, and prodded it with a finger. Then, in a sudden purple flare, they disappeared.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:  
>1. According to the Internet—a notoriously unreliable source—this is the case for British house prices in the third quarter of 1991. If not, please tell me.<br>2. A short-hand way of saying 'eight-hundred divided by three'.  
><strong>

**_Binns tells Harry and the Dursleys the history of the White King (Tom Riddle Jr's alias in _Song of Infinity_, rather than 'Lord Voldemort'), the Purity War and the Boy Who Lived. Then Hagrid arrives, and they take Harry to the city of Diagon._**


	4. Brave New World

**A/N: Warning: strong language.  
><strong>

* * *

><p><span>Brave New World<span>

Harry had never felt an odder sensation. Brilliant lilac light blinded him in instants; his jade-green eyes snapped flatly shut behind his round glasses; he was spinning through an endless vortex, tossing and turning as though carried by a silent sea…

Sound returned to Harry when he hit the floor. Cautiously he opened his eyes and got to his feet—they were somewhere. He, Professor Binns and Mr Hagrid were standing in a small room lit by fiery torches which were perilously close to countless cloaks and sets of multicoloured robes.

"This is the basement of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, the best clothes shop in Diagon," said Professor Binns with a surreptitious glance towards the door. "Madam Malkin has agreed to lose her memories of this event afterwards, for a little price, and will serve us here. Normally you would go upstairs, but if you walk around in Muggle clothing, it will be known that you were raised in the Muggle world, and we want the Knights to know as little about you as possible."

"Got it," said Harry.

"'I understand, Professor', not 'got it'," said Professor Binns. "If you go to Hogwarts sounding like a hooligan off the streets of Knockturn, everybody there will think that you are a fool.

This is as good a time as any to warn you that not everyone at Hogwarts will be happy to see the Boy Who Lived. Since it is the best school in the Empire, the richest people in the Empire go to Hogwarts. Those people are mostly from the families of the Wizengamot, the White King's main support base. Of the 224 students at Hogwarts, around one-hundred and forty will have lost at least one parent to the Godric's Hollow Trials, and all the confirmed Knights of Purity were sentenced for life."

"Bas'cally," said Mr Hagrid, "i''ll be full o' folk 'oo 'ate yer."

"Delicate as always, Rubeus," came a female voice from the doorway. Madam Malkin was a short, grey-haired woman—no, not just woman, witch—who carried herself well and who was dressed in shocking mauve robes. Harry hoped that this was not indicative of wizardly fashion.

Mr Hagrid grinned. "Yer know me, ma'am, always a gen'."

Madam Malkin snorted affectionately. "Not quite how I'd put it, but you're a good sort. So who're you," she said to Harry, "and why are Rubeus and Professor Binns here fussing over you?"

"My name's Harry D—Potter, ma'am," said Harry courteously, imitating Mr Hagrid's mode of address. It did not feel true, but perhaps that would change.

"Gods above," gasped Madam Malkin, staggering backwards. "It's nice to know these things in advance, Rubeus!"

"Sorry, Madam," said Mr Hagrid sheepishly. "Professor Dumbledore didn't wanna risk yer wri'in' yerself a note or somethin', an' 'e doesn't know yer like I do. Old Alastor Moody—you'll've 'eard of 'im—insisted on doin' it this way."

"Pluto strike me down," breathed Madam Malkin, "if only I didn't agree to that Memory Curse… The Boy Who Lived, alive, in my own shop! You nearly gave me a heart attack."

Harry was sure that she was exaggerating—she had seemed surprised, but not that shocked—but did not say so out of politeness.

"I assume that you want Hogwarts robes, Mr Potter."

"Not just those, ma'am," said Harry, "normal wizardly clothes too. I was raised in the Muggle world."

"Muggles? Jupiter… well, I suppose it's not too bad an idea—the Knights would never look there—but it's odd. How many sets of robes? And do you want any cloaks too?"

"Ten sets of Hogwarts robes, four sets of casual robes and four cloaks, if you please, ma'am," said Professor Binns. "We shall have twenty pairs of socks and twenty pairs of underwear too." Harry flushed.

Madam Malkin said, "Would you terribly mind writing down everything you're buying and leaving it with the money, along with Rubeus's name? I shan't do the writing myself, so that you can be sure that I'm not leaving any secret messages."

_What kind of world is this, where ordinary people tend to think of something like that?_ thought Harry.

"Very good of you, ma'am," said Professor Binns, withdrawing a piece of parchment from his robes. From another pocket he drew a quill pen. "Mr Hagrid will do so, however, for my identity is to remain secret. Do you have an inkwell?"

"Certainly," said Madam Malkin, hurrying over to an ornate, oaken chest of drawers. She put her mouth to it, presumably whispering a password, and then opened it with a key from her robes. Then she took out a real inkwell, just as the ones which Muggles had used many years ago, before Harry had been born.

Mr Hagrid went over to the desk (Harry followed him and looked over his shoulder) and wrote something down. To Harry, it looked totally illegible—but then again, adults' handwriting often did. Harry's adoptive father was a fairly severe offender on this basis.

"Thank you," she said. "Now, Mr Potter, if you used to live among Muggles—" by her tone of voice, she might as well have said 'among Martians'— "your wizardly sizes won't have been measured. Put your arms up, please."

Madam Malkin measured his waist, his height, the length of his arms and the length of his legs with a tape-measure. Next she said, "That's enough, thanks," and Harry put his arms back down. Madam Malkin scribbled some numbers down on Professor Binns's piece of parchment. "Which colours, in the cloaks and robes?"

"We shall try several and make a decision afterwards," said the teacher.

"All right. We'll start with the Hogwarts robes." She marched towards a jet-black set of robes whose only decoration was a small coat of arms on the right breast. "Let's see if your size is right. There are no fitting rooms down here, but I'll look away if it offends you. Remember, wizardly robes go over underwear, nothing else; you'll have to take off your Muggle clothes before you put these on."

Harry changed slowly—there seemed to be many pieces of cloth in the set of robes—and looked at himself in a large mirror on the wall. The dark robes flowed elegantly around him, matching his hair well, and making his pinkish skin and bright green eyes stand out against the blackness. It looked so good that he tried to calm his chaotic hair, which looked out of place in this epitome of 'coolness'. The crest upon the front was split into quarters, each embroidered with an animal in golden thread: one blue with some sort of bird, one green with a rearing snake, one red with a rampant lion and—anticlimactically—one yellow with, of all things, a badger.

"Well, it's the right size," said Madam Malkin prosaically, though this was the last thing on Harry's mind.

"I would like to buy nine more of those, if you please," said the teacher. "The official number is three, not ten, but school robes are often mud-encrusted by Herbology at Hogwarts, and we cannot have the Boy Who Lived looking like a slob."

"Of course," said Madam Malkin. "I'll get them for you later. Why don't you try on this cloak?" She plucked a midnight-coloured cloak off a nearby rack without even looking at it; clearly, she knew this place well.

Harry accepted it and tried to put it over his shoulders. It fell off.

"You are intended to fasten it with the chain around your neck," said Professor Binns helpfully. "Then put up the hood."

Harry did this; the cloak's chain, he could not help but notice, was made of pure gold. The garment was too warm for this place, but it was definitely the right size. Unfortunately, with the cloak covering the crest and the black hood obscuring the top third of Harry's face, he looked suspiciously like the evil emperor **[1]** from _Star Wars_.

"Is this normal?" demanded Harry.

"What's wrong?" said Madam Malkin. "It looks quite lovely, dear."

"Yes," added Professor Binns, "it suits you very well."

Harry gave up. Apparently, the evil-overlord look was fashionable here. "Nothing," he lied smoothly, "it's just that it looks different to the Muggle clothing I'm used to. It's really brilliant. Thank you."

"My pleasure, dear!" she said, beaming as though she had just been blessed by God.

"If we may proceed…" Professor Binns cut in.

"Yes, yes," said Madam Malkin, shaking out of her reverie. Before Harry knew what was going on, she was buzzing around the room and returning with countless more sets of multicoloured robes. Harry looked around in bewilderment. Every shade of every colour was represented (all wizardly clothes seemed to have only one colour) except white and anything close to it. For instance, the subtly varying shades of red stopped abruptly at a dark pinkish shade.

"Not that I mind, but why's nothing white?"

The room went deadly quiet. Madam Malkin squeaked, stopping in her tracks half-way between a rack of robes and her customers.

"That's the Knights' colour," said Mr Hagrid finally. "They wore whi'e when they wen' around the Empire murd'rin'. You won't find anyone in the Empire wearin' whi'e, nowadays."

"Sorry," Harry mumbled, shaken.

"It's all right," said Madam Malkin quietly. "I lost many friends to the Knights. The White King… he's a nasty topic, dear. People don't like being reminded of him."

Harry stared at his feet in shame. The White King who had terrorised the Empire, his likely favoured colour, nobody wanting to wear white clothes… it should have been obvious to him, and now, due to his stupidity, he had made a faux-pas.

The atmosphere in the room was never as vibrant after that, though Harry tried to make it so. Professor Binns bought four sets of casual robes for him—brick-red, navy-blue, sky-blue and crocodile green—, ten sets of school robes, four cloaks—matte black, indigo, crimson and crocodile green—, twenty pairs of socks (which were all much longer than most Muggle socks) and twenty normal-looking pairs of underwear.

"We'll show yer the ci'y la'er," said Mr Hagrid, "when yer know more 'bou' blendin' in. Now we're gonna Ollivander's. 'E's the best wander in the Empire, le' alone Diagon. There're others, bu' 'ooever wants quali'y goes t' Ollivander, 'cept if they can' pay f'r i', an' if yer going to 'Ogwarts, yer can pay f'r i'—'cept if yer ge' in on scholarship, tha' is, meaning yer fucked, 'cause ev'one else'll 'ave a good wand an' yours'll be crap."

Harry blinked. It appeared that, to Mr Hagrid, his audience's ability to understand him was an optional extra.

"What Mr Hagrid means," inserted Professor Binns, "is that the shop of Cassius Ollivander, the best wand-maker in the Empire, is nearby. His wands are very expensive, so only the richest can afford them. People who were accepted into Hogwarts on scholarship because of talent don't fall into that group—only those who can't pay otherwise can apply for scholarship—and this is unfortunate for those people, many of whom are Muggle-borns, because they are at a very high-level school with wands worse than those of the other students."

"G—I understand, Professor," said Harry.

"Very good. Now we shall be Porting again—that is to say, travelling by Portkey—for Professor Dumbledore doesn't wish you to be exposed to public view until you can pass for wizard-raised. Mr Ollivander has also agreed to a Memory Curse contract, though Professor Dumbledore had to give him quite a lot of money to ensure it. Now, if you don't mind, please hold my arm; Mr Hagrid will stay to use the Memory Curse on Madam Malkin."

Harry did so. Professor Binns took out another small package, unwrapped the pebble within and touched it, letting the parchment fall to the floor. Harry felt the disconcerting sensation of Porting again; then he fell out of nothingness.

Harry stood up and looked around. He was in another basement; it was darker than the first, with naught but a few flickering candles serving as a light source. He could make out lots of shelves, with two-inch by two-inch by twelve-inch boxes wherever Harry looked.

"The Boy Who Lived," came an unfamiliar whisper. Harry spun around and saw a pale wizard of medium height, dressed in expensive-looking navy-blue robes with white embroidery. He was extremely old, and it showed in his stooped back and numerous wrinkles. But Mr Ollivander's robes showed that he was a profitable businessman.

"I would never have suspected…" he said. "Good afternoon, Mr Potter. Judging by this enormous cache of robes, dare I presume that you have been raised in the Muggle world?"

"Good afternoon, Mr Ollivander," said Harry. It took effort to say, "Yes, I do," instead of 'yeah'.

The old man's light grey eyes pierced him like arrows for a moment, making Harry momentarily believe that he had spoken the wrong name, before Mr Ollivander said, "I see that my reputation precedes me. As you have stated, my name is Cassius Ollivander. You, obviously, are Harry Potter, the bane of the White King."

Next there was a soundless burst of purple radiance, and Mr Hagrid appeared. "Ah. Your bodyguard," said Mr Ollivander delicately, looking at Mr Hagrid with unveiled disdain.

"That is quite enough, Mr Ollivander," Professor Binns interjected. "Will you do your job?"

"Yes, yes. I daresay Mr Potter is here for his first wand?"

"Obviously," said the historian curtly. "Now do your job."

"I shall of course do so," the wand-maker almost snapped, then swerved into the lilting tones of speech-making:

"A wand, Mr Potter, is made of a wood and a core, and there are three cores that I use: Hippogriff fur, phoenix feather and unicorn hair. Hippogriffs, phoenixes and unicorns are magical animals which contain less innate magic than a wizard. Grindylows, Muggles and vampires contain too little magic to be useful, whereas dragons and wizards possess too much. Indeed, dragons are so magical that they are the only beings capable of surviving the Killing Curse, except, apparently, yourself."

Harry flushed. It was flattering to be compared to a dragon in power, but that would be ridiculous; it was probably a magical coincidence of some sort.

"A wand is the most important purchase of your life," said Mr Ollivander. "Once you have made a connection with a suitable wand, you can use no other wand, and nobody else can use yours. If you lose it, it will take months for the connection to break, and if you use the wand even once in that time, the connection will be just as strong as ever. Wandlore is the most difficult and mysterious branch of wizardry, but it is also the most important, essential to all wizardry except potions—and verily," he said contemptuously, "potions are not a branch of wizardry at all, they are naught but chemistry with magical ingredients."

Mr Ollivander gave his wand a tiny flick. A box jumped off a shelf and rushed through the air towards him; he caught it in his left hand and offered it to Harry. "Try this one: beech-wood and fur from a Southeast Asian Hippogriff. Take it and give it a wave."

Harry opened the box and took the twelve-inch stick which lay within. Feeling somewhat silly, he waved it. It produced two dim sparks, just like Professor Binns's wand.

Mr Ollivander snatched it back, packaged it, put the box away and took another. "Maple and hair from a West African unicorn." Harry waved the new wand, but Mr Ollivander grabbed it again, for again only two sparks had appeared.

"Rosewood and a feather from a phoenix **[2]**. Go on, test it." This wand produced far more sparks, and they were white instead of blue; Harry swept the wand through the air, and a trail of white sparks drifted behind it.

But Mr Ollivander didn't seem to think this was the one for him. "Phoenix feather, then, it must be…" he mused, and passed Harry the next wand.

Mr Ollivander tried ten other phoenix-feather wands, but none of them worked. Many times Harry felt warmth run down his arm, but never the instant connection that Mr Ollivander had described for a truly ideal wand.

"Tha' i'?" demanded Mr Hagrid. "Ain' yer go' no'fin' else?"

"Well… there is a minor possibility, I cannot think as to why it would make any particular difference…"

"Wha'?" said Mr Hagrid brusquely. Harry got the feeling that he and Madam Malkin were not among the British wizardly elite, like Mr Ollivander and Professor Binns.

Turning his pale grey eyes to Harry, Mr Ollivander said, "Your parents owned a pet phoenix, a male called Fawkes. His company during your youth is probably why you are so attuned to phoenix-feather wands; it has been known to happen before, after all, children who often visit their parents at Hippogriff reserves are more likely to have Hippogriff-fur wands. I merely conjectured that perhaps a wand with one of his feathers would be suited to you… I have never heard of such a thing occurring with individual specimens, rather than species or subspecies as a whole, but there is of course no harm in trying."

Mr Ollivander walked to a particular set of shelves and began to scrutinise the boxes carefully. Harry whispered to Professor Binns, "Is it common to have pet phoenixes?"

"No," said Professor Binns, equally quietly, "but your father was from the upper classes; he even studied at Hogwarts." There was a note of envy in the historian's voice; Harry realised that Professor Binns himself had attended not Hogwarts, but a lesser school.

"Here it is!" cried Mr Ollivander triumphantly. "Holly and a feather gathered from the phoenix Fawkes, a male, owned by James Potter. Take it," he said, handing a box to Harry.

Harry opened the box. Lying neatly on a red velvet cushion was a pale wand, almost white. He picked it up.

No sooner had Harry touched the wand than it burst into golden flames which didn't burn him, rushing backwards from it along his arm and all over his robed body. There was sound like a rapturous sigh, a breath of otherworldly air, a song that stretched all the way to infinity…

The moment stopped. Mr Ollivander said, "That wand will suit you well, unless my eyes deceive me. I daresay I have never seen a reaction like that before." Now the wand-maker looked almost sad. "I suppose I'll be Obliviated of this event, now."

"Either that, or Rubeus will remove your memories merely of Harry's identity. You could still remember what happened, but you wouldn't be able to recall Harry's name, appearance or anything else about his situation."

"I shall choose that option, then," said Mr Ollivander. "Seven Galleons, please." And without warning he turned brisk and businesslike, accepting the wooden coins and placing them behind a desk near the corner.

Mr Hagrid stayed behind to remove Mr Ollivander's memories, whereas Harry and Professor Binns Ported yet again.

In a whirl of violet magic, they reappeared in a room which was well-lit by fiery torches. They stood in a classroom; that was clear, for there were several tables and desks, all finely carved of marble, and a similarly marble teacher's desk and chair, larger than the others, next to a blackboard. _They're being cheap_, Harry realised. It was easy to transfigure things into marble, so these expensive-looking bits of furniture were actually literally as cheap as dirt.

All of a sudden, Harry was startled to feel a pressure on his left shoulder. He turned his head to look at it, and gasped. Resting against Harry's head was the most beautiful animal that he had ever seen. The phoenix was the size of a swan, with a stunning array of scarlet feathers, and its big black eyes were streaked with ever-moving lines of golden flame.

"My God," he breathed, enraptured.

"It appears she likes you," commented a pleasant voice, and Harry had to force himself to turn around slowly, for fear of unsettling the phoenix. Standing in the doorway was an elderly, purple-robed wizard who was as tall as Mr Hagrid, though much thinner. He sported a long grey beard, grey hair that was almost as long, and bright blue eyes which twinkled behind platinum-rimmed glasses like spots of sunlight. Another phoenix was perched on his right shoulder; it appeared that he owned two of them.

"Good afternoon, Professor Dumbledore," said Professor Binns, lowering his head.

"Good afternoon, Professor Dumbledore," echoed Harry, hastily doing the same.

"Oh, please do not imitate Cuthbert, he is far too formal," said Professor Dumbledore cheerfully. "I take it that everything that is transpiring precisely as I have devised?"

"Yes, sir," said the historian deferentially, like a child talking to an adult, though Professor Dumbledore appeared to be the same age as him.

"Excellent, most excellent," beamed the leader of the Order of the Phoenix. "This stay of yours will have to be brief, Harry." He passed Professor Binns a large sack. "This contains the books which you will require for school, as well as Samantha Taylor's introduction to the affairs of the Empire. I hope that you, and your family if they so desire, will find it most instructive." Professor Dumbledore beamed again; it appeared that he did not know how not to smile. "Good day!"

"Good day, sir," they chorused, and Professor Binns said, "By your leave, sir?"

"Of course."

"We shall now go to your house," said the historian. "All questions that you have about the wizardly world will be answered by Miss Taylor's book; it of course is very well-regarded in the Imperial academic community. Now, if you would take my hand…"

"Ah, one more thing," interjected Professor Dumbledore. "Though I am certain that Pulchra would love to stay with you, she is untrained in Muggle avoidance, and it would be awfully annoying for you to be incarcerated for breaking the International Statute. Pulchra…" He whistled, and she sang.

The phoenix song was magical; there was no other way to describe it… It was all tunes and none, intertwining perfectly, a stretch of something inhuman—no, superhuman—as magnificent as sunset. It was indeed the sonic equivalent of those stunning colours sweeping across the horizon, bright and beautiful yet with an undertone of sorrow, for the night was coming, and for a while the sun would not be seen. The phoenix Pulchra sang of love and hate, of hope and misery, of tragic loss and epiphanic wonder, of all these extraordinary things…

With a stern face, Professor Dumbledore whistled again, and the phoenix flew off Harry's shoulder and landed on his. "Yes," he said to Harry sympathetically, "it is quite something, is it not?"

"Yes, sir," said Harry, only half-listening. He was still dwelling on the unspeakably vast beauty of the phoenix song, both mournful and infinitely uplifting at the same time.

"Good, good," said Professor Dumbledore briskly. "Pulchra will see you at Hogwarts, never fear; I shall let her keep you company if she wants to. The Headmaster's salary is not so great, but I own the _Imperial Times_, so I hardly lack money; I can buy another phoenix, and it would truly be a shame for you to lose her when she has taken such a shine to you." He added, conspiratorially: "Phoenixes are not normally so friendly to those whom they have only just encountered; I daresay you are the exception rather than the norm, in this case."

"Thank you, sir," said Harry. _Apparently I'm popular with supernatural birds_, he thought sardonically._ Well, you learn something new every day._

Professor Binns passed him another pebble, and in a flash of purple light they vanished.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:  
>1. Emperor Palpatine is the main villain in the <em>Star Wars<em> film series, on the off-chance that some of you don't know.  
>2. In <em>Song of Infinity<em>, unlike dragons, Hippogriffs and unicorns, the phoenix species has no subspecies.**


	5. The Journey

**A/N: I have three warnings for this chapter.**

**1. Strong language.**

**2. Don't expect the _Song of Infinity_ characters to be the same as canonical characters, even in name, let alone behaviour.**

**3. The _Song of Infinity_ characters are not perfect. Please don't expect them to be. They will be hypocritical, stupid and even cruel at times; they are representations of people, not angels.**

* * *

><p><span>The Journey<span>

Before the day had passed, Harry was profoundly grateful for _The Wizardly British Empire: by a Muggle-born for Muggle-borns_. It told him lots about the wizardly world which he really ought to know. The Empire was a whole new world opening before him, a whole new range of possibilities. Harry had already decided that he wanted to be a dragon keeper, a vampire hunter or a professional duellist.

Dragon keepers were the wizardly British Empire's equivalent of champion sportsmen—there didn't appear to be much sport in the wizardly world, and they kept fit by walking a lot. It was a dragon-keeper's job to feed the dragons, check them for diseases, breed them, and take potion ingredients from them. Samantha Taylor's book was full of stories of dragon-keepers who went flying on their dragons' backs.

Dragon-riding was not a common method of transportation, of course, not even because of how much training it took. Who would bother to fly when they could teleport? It would be like riding a horse instead of a car. But it was so inestimably cool that Harry couldn't give up the idea of being a dragon-keeper.

Vampires were monstrous creatures which roamed many areas, both wizardly and Muggle. They weren't a problem in wizardly areas—any competent wizard could kill a vampire with ease—but they were definitely so in Muggle places. Vampires were inhumanly fast and strong, though they were less intelligent than the average house-cat; they were cruel, ruthless killers which preyed on humans, and so an unarmed Muggle was no match for them, not to mention the threat which they posed to the International Statute of Wizardly Secrecy.

(Apparently, vampires didn't bite people to turn them into more vampires; Samantha Taylor claimed that this myth had been invented by religious zealots as an excuse to persecute people. Real vampires looked completely different to even the most deformed human; they were the same height and had the same limbs, but they had obvious claws on their hands and feet, and their skin was always wrinkled, and as white as bone.)

It was particularly bad for wizardly society when vampires attacked Muggle soldiers, who were easily capable of killing them. The soldiers tended to report to their superiors, who would report to their superiors, and before long, there was a huge mess for the Obliviators to clean up.

Professional duelling, in Harry's opinion was the coolest of them all. The Empire contained many duelling circuits, where people willingly fought each other. The loser was the person who fell over first; deaths occurred occasionally, but most duellists were so well-trained that this was very rare. This was the wizardly world's equivalent of football; everybody paid attention to the circuits.

Taylor provided a list of champions of the All-Empire Circuit, the most prestigious of all circuits in the eponymous empire. One of those champions was Filius Flitwick, who now taught Charms at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry was very excited about Professor Flitwick's class.

Harry's relationship with his adoptive parents was as strong as ever, but Dudley had abruptly cooled to him. It appeared that his brother—no, cousin—was jealous of his magic. Harry could not blame him; if he were the Muggle and Dudley the Boy Who Lived, he would have been jealous too. Harry was going into a marvellous new world as a beloved celebrity, whereas Dudley was staying here with nothing more than he had started with. Not for the first time, Harry thought it unfair that a few people had magic but most did not.

But what could he do about that?

Despite Harry's parents, who were being extremely supportive, Dudley was becoming so unpleasant that it was almost a relief when there was a brilliant potassium-purple flare while Harry was in his room in the afternoon of Sunday 1st September 1991, despite it meaning that he wouldn't see his family until the Christmas holidays.

The person who emerged from the Portkey's residual glow was a tall, middle-aged woman, dressed in dark green robes and with black hair tied in a bun. "Good afternoon, Mr Potter," she said crisply. "Do you have everything which you need?"

Harry said, "I do, ma'am," outwardly calmly. It was true: his textbooks were in several big plastic bags on the table, and the school already had his wizardly clothes and his wand.

"'Professor'," she corrected. "I am Professor Martha **[1] **McGonagall of Transfiguration at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I take it that you have said your goodbyes?"

"Yes, Professor."

"Good. Please hold my arm." Harry did so, and Professor McGonagall reached for something in her pocket.

Harry's eyes were seared again by blinding light. He, Professor McGonagall and the bag seemed to be stuck together as they whirled through a soundless stream, constantly twisting and turning. Then, a mere second after the sensation had started, it was complete, and Harry kept his balance this time, though he swayed before righting himself. He was getting used to Portkeys.

Harry looked around. He was standing in the classroom in which he had met Professor Dumbledore and his phoenixes. A thought occurred to him. "Professor," he asked, suddenly uneasy, "why isn't Hogwarts guarded against Portkeys? Surely anyone can come in."

"No. There are Anti-Portkey Charms in effect around Hogwarts and its grounds, but a Portkey made by the Headmaster is capable of bypassing the school's Anti-Portkey Charms, and Professor Dumbledore wants no-one to know that you were raised a Muggle. Is that clear?" Professor McGonagall added, fixing him with an eagle-eyed stare.

"Yes, Professor," Harry gulped.

"Good. Your clothes are in this trunk, which has been bought for you." She motioned at a large, five-foot-long trunk in the corner which Harry had not noticed before. "You may change here. I shall leave the room if you wish."

"Thank you, Professor," said Harry, wishing for privacy.

Professor McGonagall went through the door and closed it. Harry sat down on a chair and started to take off his normal clothes and to change into his black school robes.

Once he had dressed himself, Harry noted happily that his wand, in its box, was lying in the trunk. He retrieved it, opened the box and touched it lightly with his fingers. Immediately he felt warm, happy, relaxed and comfortable; a golden spark danced on the wand's tip.

Harry combed his hair with his right hand, making it mildly presentable, though it was always wild.

"Mr Potter," Professor McGonagall greeted from an open doorway; Harry looked up at her. "Put everything in your trunk and leave it here. It will be put into your dormitory once you are Sorted."

_The Wizardly British Empire_ had told Harry about the Sorting Ceremony, which split the students of Hogwarts into its four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Its specifics were apparently a secret.

"When you are ready," continued Professor McGonagall, "this is a Portkey to the great gates." She took out a small object wrapped in parchment like Mr Hagrid's one, placed it on a table, and waited. Harry folded his Muggle clothes and put them into the plastic bag, which in turn was put into the trunk. Then he zipped it up, unwrapped the hidden Portkey (unsurprisingly, a pebble) and touched it. In a spinning flare of lilac light he disappeared.

Harry's new location was magnificent. He stood outside a set of colossal wrought iron gates along with hundreds of other children, all in wizardly robes. Several adult witches and wizards stood protectively over them all.

He was in an odd, booth-like structure of iron, painted bright red like a post-box. He recognised it from the illustrations of Taylor's book; it was a Porting booth. Porting booths existed so that people didn't Port onto each other by accident.

There was another purple flash, and a black-robed girl appeared in the booth next to Harry's; there were seven Porting booths here, all next to each other. Harry walked out of the Porting booth, somewhat intimidated by the hundreds of other children chattering as though they all knew each other. There was a vast lake nearby, a peaceful blue expanse of mind-boggling size. Behind the gates was a spectacular, gargantuan castle wrought of black granite, with multiple towers and arched, Gothic windows.

"Hullo!" said a young, upper-class voice nearby, and Harry tore his eyes away from the scenery to look at the well-dressed boy who owned it, who was smiling in a friendly manner. He was standing in a gaggle of other boys. "My name is Draco Malfoy. If you please, let me introduce you to Blaise Zabini, Quartus Corner, Kevin Entwhistle, Theodore Nott, Zacharias Smith, Vincent Crabbe and Seamus Finnigan." He gestured to each of his companions. "How do you do?" He held out his hand to shake.

Harry shook it. Judging by his glance at Harry's scar, Draco already knew Harry's name, but it was only polite to say, "Harry Potter. A pleasure to meet you." Harry had to force himself to say 'a pleasure' instead of 'nice'.

His adoptive parents had taught him to speak more eloquently, on the basis that "If you're going to get any respect from these nobles, you'll have to sound like one of them" but it was still hard for him to do so. There were so many little things, like pronouncing "y"s on the ends of words as "ih", rather than "ee".

"The same to you, Harry," said Draco, exchanging a significant glance with Blaise. "I did expect that it was only an accident."

"To which house do you believe that you will be Sorted?" said one of the boys—Harry thought that this was Zacharias. "I of course shall be Sorted into Hufflepuff, naturally. All my family have been in Hufflepuff."

"Good luck," said Harry, and added hastily, "in doing so." He almost said "er" at the beginning, but paused instead. His adoptive mother would be proud. "I am not sure which house I'll… shall be in."

"Presumably the one in which your parents were," Kevin, a brown-haired boy with blue eyes, said helpfully. "That is, after all, how the Sorting usually works."

"They may, of course, be in different houses," said Zacharias. "Do tell, Harry, in which houses were they?"

"I don't—do not possess that knowledge."

"You have never found out?" exclaimed Quartus, scandalised. "But Harry, it is most important to know one's family history. Hmm… I daresay that I may have a copy…" He swung his rucksack off his back and searched it for something, and after a few seconds he said, "Aha!" Quartus passed Harry a book with the title _Nature's Nobility: A Wizardly Genealogy_.

"Thank you," said Harry politely.

"You are very welcome," said Quartus. "Do not worry, I do not blame you for what happened to your poor father; it must have been a love potion, given the circumstances. Both that whore and he were at Hogwarts before she forced herself upon him. Luckily, he was soon saved from that unpleasant state. Modern society has quite a double standard on the subject, you know; if a wizard used a love potion on a witch, there would be huge public outcry, yet it is perfectly acceptable for a witch to use one on a wizard."

Harry nodded. He had read about love potions; they forced the target to be hopelessly infatuated with the user. "That does sound unfair," he said truthfully. He didn't like the idea that his father had been briefly ensnared by whoever 'that whore' was. Presumably it was his mother who had saved him.

"Yes, well," said Quartus, "many of the Ministry's judgements are unfair. They should never have allowed that _pig_ who teaches Potions to continue."

"Who's—who would that be?" said Harry in a tone of mild surprise.

"A filthy, greasy traitor who goes by the name of Severus Snape," said Blaise venomously. "He is utterly despicable: he gave information to the enemy about many brave witches and wizards, including many who thought themselves to be his friends. My father would still be with me if not for him."

"As well as mine," said Quartus.

"And mine," echoed Kevin, shortly followed by Theodore, Vincent and Seamus.

"Both of my parents," said Draco softly. His quiet friend, Vincent, put an arm around his shoulders.

"What a scumbag," said Harry disgustedly, picturing somebody who had betrayed his own friends to the White King.

"In addition to that," said Blaise grimly, "at Hogwarts, Snape is notoriously cruel to those students whose parents' misfortune he caused, yet Dumbledore still allows him to be a teacher."

"You are being too cruel to Professor Dumbledore," said Harry. "I have met him; it seems more likely to me that he would be happily oblivious than evil." Harry congratulated himself; he had used the word "oblivious".

"Oh, Dumbledore is evil, that is certain," said Draco. "Have you not been told of the fourth battle of Kanlen? Dumbledore murdered twelve pureblooded wizards himself."

This did not fit at all with Harry's image of the smiling old man whom he had seen. "Murder? But wasn't—was he not the leader of the Order of the Phoenix?"

"You think that their leader would not engage in combat with them?" said Draco. "Dumbledore does possess enough honour to do that, though no more, since he betrayed wizard-kind to our eternal enemies."

And finally it became clear to Harry. Of course Draco and his friends hated Dumbledore; of course they were so interested in wizardly family history; of course they thought that Harry's father must have been put under a love potion, for he had married one whom they regarded as beneath them; they wouldn't have been thinking of Harry's mother when they spoke of his father being saved…

"You are blood purists," he said in a voice of quiet horror.

"And you," said Draco in a soft, accusing tone of sudden realisation, "are a blood traitor. What a shame. I thought that you were a friend."

"I can be," said Harry, with boldness that he had never known that he had, "if you stop your racism." Almost immediately he regretted saying it; it sounded melodramatic.

Zacharias promptly said, "How distinctly melodramatic. Now, mudblood-lover, get out of my sight."

"I'm happy to," said Harry coldly. Angry and humiliated, he turned on his heel and walked into the heaving crowd. There he stayed, without anybody to talk to, until the gates swung open and a familiar voice called:

"All o' you in!"

Harry looked back. Mr Hagrid was standing at the back of the crowd of students. Harry waved at him, happy to see something of a friend in this newly desolate place, and Mr Hagrid grinned and waved back. Then Harry was pushed forwards by the tide of students entering the castle.

The Hogwarts students walked along a cobblestone path which led to a large door. Mr Hagrid went to the front and knocked on it. Professor McGonagall opened it and waved in all the students with house crests, which were red, yellow, green and blue, unlike the simpler white Hogwarts ones which the first-years bore.

Malfoy and his seven friends had formed a group with some girls and two other boys, and they all were glaring at everybody else. Harry spotted five other boys and six girls, beside him, away from the blood purists.

"Hullo," said Harry, taking care to pronounce it just so as he determinedly walked up to a lanky, red-haired boy who had not been among the group of blood purist boys. He felt the weight of everybody's eyes upon his back. "My name is Harry Potter. How do you do?"

"Ronald Weasley, and very well, thank you," said the boy. A blood purist girl let out a derisive snort. Harry ignored her. "You may call me Ron. And you?"

"Very well," said Harry, dipping his head. "So, Ron—" with effort, he stopped himself from saying 'er'— "what are you interested in?"

"Cosying up to the blood traitor spawn already, I see," said Corner disdainfully. "I would like to have my book back."

"Take this waste of ink," said Harry, tossing it towards him. Corner's eyes widened in shock. "It suits a waste of oxygen."

"That a mudblood's spawn thus has the audacity to call a pure-blooded wizard a waste of oxygen," said Malfoy with lazy contempt, "is an… interesting… statement about the nature of modern society."

Harry said sweetly, "I have always wondered why you blood purists are so proud of your ancestors. Perhaps it is because you have no talents of your own…"

The non-blood purist students burst into laughter, and Malfoy's face reddened furiously. Harry did not care about the blonde boy's embarrassment. He believed in a doctrine which proposed the genocide of a quarter of wizard-kind and the enslavement of Muggles; Harry could not find himself remotely sympathetic to that.

"You will die, Potter," Malfoy murmured, his fists tightening.

"Really? How unique!" Harry exclaimed in tones of faux disbelief.

"I shall not congratulate myself; it cannot be too difficult to astonish you, the son of a mudblooded prostitute and an alcoholic."

"While your father is happy in Azkaban, bending—" Harry broke off. Professor McGonagall had left the castle, and her expression did not imply that she would tolerate their flurry of insults.

Professor McGonagall led the first-year students into a large hall in which the whole of No.4 Privet Drive could have fitted. It was lit by torches, and its floor was formed of huge limestone blocks.

"Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," she said curtly. "I am Professor McGonagall—you will address me and all teachers as 'Professor'—and this is the Entrance Hall. You will soon enter the Great Hall for the start-of-term banquet. The Sorting Ceremony is to occur shortly. While you are here, your house—which will be decided now—will be like your family here. There are four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin, each of them named for one of the founders of this school. Achievements will earn you house points, while faults will lose house points."

She gave them all a menacing stare, as if promising them that she would not be pleased if they lost house points.

"At the end of the year, the house points add up to the House Cup, a great honour for all the witches and wizards of that house. I trust that you will each strive to gain that prize. Come on in."

The first-year students followed Professor McGonagall into a room which was many times bigger than the Entrance Hall. The Great Hall had to have thousands of candles and four long, ebony tables, laid with silver plates and cups. There was another long table at the end of the hall, which had to be a hundred metres from where the first-years were standing; the teachers were behind it. The ceiling was so far up that Harry could barely see it, and there were doors all along the walls, all of them bigger than Mr Hagrid.

At the centre of the the teachers' table was a massive throne of pure gold. Upon it sat Professor Dumbledore, who was absent-mindedly sketching a picture of a dragon in the air with a glowing quill.

Professor McGonagall strode up to a place directly in front of the Headmaster's gold throne. He looked up suddenly, his face crinkling with embarrassment. She took from the table a pointy hat which was patched, frayed, and covered with dust and dirt. It would have made Harry's adoptive mother apoplectic.

"When I call your name," directed Professor McGonagall, "you are to place the hat upon your head, in order for you to be Sorted. Abbott, Hannah!"

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled the long distance up to the hat, every eye in the hall fixed upon her. Hannah, who had not been with Malfoy's group, looked nervous, and Harry empathised; he felt so too. Professor McGonagall placed the hat over her head; it covered most of her face. There was a pregnant silence; then:

"HUFFLEPUFF!" boomed a deep voice from the hat's direction. Harry's eyes widened in amazement. The table on the far right cheered and applauded. Hannah sat down next to a friendly bunch of older students.

"Bones, Susan!" called Professor McGonagall.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat cried, and Susan went to sit next to her friend.

"Brocklehurst, Amanda!" This girl had been one of the blood purists.

"RAVENCLAW!" The table second from the left applauded, and Amanda went off to sit there.

"Brown, Lavender!"

This girl, a blonde blood purist, became a Gryffindor, joining the table at the far left.

"Bulstrode, Millicent!"

"SLYTHERIN!" Millicent walked over to the table second from the right. The Slytherins clapped less raucously than the other tables, and when Millicent sat down, her housemates nodded cordially to her. Was it Harry's imagination, or had Professor McGonagall's face tightened disapprovingly?

Names passed, and Harry felt ill. _What if I go to Slytherin like a blood purist? What shall I do?_

Harry paid attention to the non-blood purists' Sortings. Stephen Cornfoot was Sorted into Ravenclaw, as were Morag Macdougal and Padma Patil, whereas Justin Finch-Fletchley and Michael Hopkins went to Ravenclaw, and Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom and Sally-Anne Perks went to Gryffindor. Harry hoped that he did not end up in Slytherin; unlike the other houses, all its first-year denizens were blood purists.

At last, after Sally-Anne… "Potter, Harry!"

Immediately whispers burst around the room like rockets. "The Boy Who Lived?" "THE Harry Potter?" Harry felt highly uncomfortable as he walked through the gap between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables at the centre of the room; every eye was fixed upon him. He walked over to the hat beneath the Headmaster's smiling face and it blocked his eyes…

_Difficult_, whispered a voice which Harry soon identified as the voice that had come from the hat. Why was it speaking to him? It had not audibly spoken to anybody else. _I am talking inside your mind_, the hat chuckled, and Harry blinked in amazement. _Oh yes. Plenty of courage, I see. Not too much of a dullard, though not Ravenclaw, not at all—the thirst for knowledge simply is not strong enough. Ooh, ambition, that is ever-so interesting, dare I say, O "Boy Who Lived"… therefore where ought I to place you?_

_Not Slytherin, not Slytherin_, thought Harry desperately, hoping that it could hear him. He was not a blood purist; he did not at all want to join the likes of Malfoy.

_Not Slytherin?_ asked the hat. _Are you certain? Slytherin would help you to be a powerful wizard… no? Hmmhmm… in which case it will have to be_ "GRYFFINDOR!"

The last word, the only one spoken aloud, almost deafened Harry. He took the hat off, handed it to Professor McGonagall, and walked, trembling, to the Gryffindor table. He was so pleased that he had not been Sorted into Slytherin that he did not realise that the cheer for him was louder than those for anybody else. Someone was yelling, "WE GOT POTTER!" and lots of the older students were shaking his hand excitedly.

There were only four people after Harry: Smith, a blood purist girl called Lisa Turpin, Ron and Zabini. Ron went into Gryffindor, and Harry smiled at him as he sat down next to Harry, Finnigan (to Harry's distate) and Neville Longbottom. After Zabini entered Slytherin, Professor Dumbledore stood up. The old wizard was grinning from ear to ear, as though the students' mere presence delighted him beyond measure.

"Welcome!" he said, and though his voice was not a shout, somehow it reverberated throughout the room more loudly than the hat's. "To both old students and new, welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! I hope that you all enjoy the magic and wonder which await you."

As though there had been some invisible signal, a hundred servants entered the room. They deposited what they were holding onto the tables, and then came back with more, and more, and more… There was food of all sorts: beef, chicken, pork, lamb, sausages, bacon, steak, scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, baked potatoes, chips, peas, carrots, green beans, sweetcorn, mushrooms, gravy…

The food was delicious, as good as what Harry usually got at restaurants. When everyone had stuffed themselves with so much of it that they were burping all the time, Professor Dumbledore stood with a phoenix on his left shoulder, not Pulchra but the one of whose name Harry was unaware. All the students fell silent, even those who were glaring at Professor Dumbledore wherever he went, including Finnigan. Harry recalled that Finnigan's father had been a Knight of Purity whom the Headmaster had captured or killed.

"Now, I know that this is generally the least favourite part of the feast, but I do have a few notices to give to you. The Forbidden Forest in the grounds must not be entered by any pupil. It is roamed by vampires, and vampires eat people." Several of the students giggled quietly at the solemnity with which Professor Dumbledore announced this piece of common knowledge.

"One-on-one duels," continued the Headmaster, "are permitted, as long as they are held with at least three witnesses for each duellist, but damage to school property will be charged from your parents at the end of the year."

Harry gaped, even as everybody else cheered. _Which moron thought that it was a good idea for people to duel at school?_

"And now," said Professor Dumbledore, "it is bedtime. Off you go!"

The Gryffindor first-years followed a red-headed prefect through the crowd, out of the Great Hall and up one of the many staircases. Ron whispered that the boy was his brother, Finnigan glared at the other three, and Neville looked everywhere with almost comical timidity.

At last the prefect arrived at the entrance to Gryffindor tower. A disembodied voice emerged from a door, like the hat, and said emotionlessly, "Password?" It did not sound nearly as intelligent as the hat; maybe it did not have as much magic on it.

"Caput draconis," said the prefect, and in response, the door opened itself. The first-years trailed through it after the prefect and thereby entered the Gryffindor common room, a homely place with lots of comfortable armchairs.

The prefect led the first-year girls to one door and the boys to another. To his delight, Harry found himself in a room with four large four-poster beds, each with garnet-red curtains. His trunk was next to one of them. Ignoring the glaring Finnigan, Harry scrambled over to it, changed from his robes into his pyjamas, and fell almost immediately asleep.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:  
>1. This is not a mistake, it is deliberate. In <em>Song of Infinity<em>, the wizardly world worships the Roman religion, and in that religion, Minerva was a goddess; in European culture, it is incredibly pretentious to name your child after a deity that you believe in. The idea is like that of a Christian naming their son _Jesus_.**


	6. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry

**A/N: This is the point where characterisation becomes greatly AU.**

* * *

><p><span>Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry<span>

There were eight subjects for a Hogwarts first-year, which hardly resembled Muggle subjects. English was the only Muggle subject which was still taught; separated from Muggle English by nothing but the set texts. There were, however, some exceptions. It seemed that _The Lord of the Rings_ had more fans than J.R.R. Tolkien would have thought possible.

Harry's first lesson of all was Charms, which was taught by a wizard a little over five feet high. "Good morning, class!" he exclaimed as they entered the classroom.

"Good morning, Professor," the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw class chorused.

"Sit down, sit down," urged the Charms teacher, ushering them in. "Do so wherever it please you, I shall not insist upon a particular seating plan." Harry sat next to Ron. "My name is Filius Flitwick, and today, you will perform your first magic."

All the students looked intently at him, excited. None of them had ever performed magic before; to do so, one had to have a licence, granted by the Ministry of Magic.

"I am glad that you are excited," said Professor Flitwick. "Other subjects are important too, of course, but I—" he leant forward conspiratorially, and said in a faux whisper: "have always thought that magic is the real reason why one would attend a school for wizardry. Would you not agree?"

Everybody, it seemed, enthusiastically agreed.

"So who can tell me what magic is?" All people's hands shot up. "Yes, Miss Macdougal?" he said, nodding to a Ravenclaw girl.

"The mechanism through which a witch or wizard exerts control over their surroundings," said Macdougal. Several others nodded in agreement.

"Incorrect," said Professor Flitwick, making a tutting noise. "That is wizardry, the use of magic by humans, not magic itself. Who can define magic?"

Although everybody else remained a silent, a bushy-haired Gryffindor girl, who was sitting next to a blonde Gryffindor girl, raised her hand. For the first time, Harry noticed that the two girls' textbooks were battered and that their robes were far shabbier than all the other students'. Remembering Professor Binns's words in Madam Malkin's shop, Harry deduced the cause: she was Muggle-born.

"Yes, Miss Granger?"

"Professor, it's a physical force with operational supremacy over all other forces, which exists in varying quantities all over the universe," she recited at breakneck speed.

"Very good!" said Professor Flitwick. Lots of the blood purists glared at her; Harry winced in sympathy. As well as getting the answer right when they had failed to do so, she had used an abbreviation and had spoken in an accent completely different to the upper-class, perfect Queen's English which they always used and which Harry was managing to learn how to use. "Who can tell me what 'operational supremacy' is?"

Miss Granger's hand shot up again. Professor Flitwick looked around to see if he could give anybody else a chance, and then said, "Yes, Miss Granger?"

"It means that magic's immune to the operation of all other forces, Professor. Magic never weakens or wears off, Professor; it can only ever be undone by more magic."

"Exactly!" said Professor Flitwick. "Five points to Gryffindor. If a Flame-Freezing Charm is placed on something, no amount of heat can make its temperature rise, even if it goes into a the heart of a volcano.

Nobody knows quite why this is, but it certainly is so; it has many times been proven, both by complex magical theory and by the simple fact that no enchantment, ever, has worn off; there is absolutely zero evidence against operational supremacy, and lots of evidence in favour of it.

Our first spell, which we indeed shall start to learn today, is the Cancellation Curse, whose job is to cancel other spells and whose incantation is _finite incantatem_…"

The blood purists glared at the clever Muggle-born girl for the rest of the lesson, especially since she mastered the Cancellation Curse long before they did. After it, Harry caught up with her as they approached their next lesson, Transfiguration. As he approached her, he tried to remember her name from the Sorting Ceremony, and finally got it: "Hermione!"

She turned around. "Hello—er, Harry, right?"

"Harry Potter, yes. How do you do?" He had to be perfectly mannered, all the time—he knew that if he didn't he'd never manage to pass off as wizard-raised. Harry didn't like it, however; it sounded pompous.

"Er, fine. How do you do?"

"Very well, thank you. For a start," he tried to sound as posh as he could, "I congratulate you on your… insight in class; you have clearly… researched the subject well."

Hermione blushed. "Thanks. I read through all my textbooks on the way to school."

After a pause, he said, "…Well done on that, in any case. I also have, ah, a little suggestion to make. It is common in this school to speak and act in a manner that is more… refined than you may be used to. I thought to… inform you that… it would be greatly to your advantage, if you… adopted this manner of speech, so that you do not draw so much attention to yourself, due to the racist feelings that many people here hold towards Muggle-borns," he concluded, relieved.

"So that's why they look at me weirdly…" she muttered to herself. "Yeah, that makes sense… Thanks. What's your name again, is it Harry?"

"It is," said Harry, feeling acutely uncomfortable. Many people's eyes were upon him; he could feel it.

"Thanks," she said again, sounding as awkward as he felt. She gave him a brief hug, then left.

Harry dawdled in place for a while. Then a cheerful voice from behind him said, "Well done, Harry."

Harry spun around, dropping his bag of textbooks. Behind him was standing Professor Dumbledore, with wand in hand, a smiling face and twinkling blue eyes.

"I—I failed to see you, Professor," he said.

"Oh, do not worry about that, of all things," said the Headmaster pleasantly. "I merely thought to congratulate you on being kind when it gained you nothing. Also, 'greatly to your advantage'… you appear to be improving."

Harry blushed. "Thank you, Professor."

Professor Dumbledore said seriously, "It is always pleasing to me when a wizard-born pupil reaches out to help Muggle-borns against prejudice. You have my sincerest congratulations on that regard. Your parents would be proud of you."

Harry lowered his head, not knowing what to say. When he thought of 'parents', the mental image which rose to mind was still that of his adoptive parents, not his blood parents, to whom the Headmaster was undoubtedly referring. He wasn't sure whether to feel pleased or guilty about this. "Thank you, Professor," he said at last.

All of a sudden, there was a flutter of wings, and a light pressure on his right shoulder. Harry looked up in wonder as the otherworldly lilt of phoenix song rang out through the air, soothing all his worries and filling him with calm, making him feel as though nothing could be wrong with the world.

"Verily she does like you," Professor Dumbledore noted. "Goodbye, Harry—and I ought to bid goodbye to Pulchra too, at least for a while, I suspect."

Harry felt embarrassed. "You can have her back if you want, Professor—"

"No, no, phoenixes should not be considered property. Besides," he winked, "it will help you when you tell Professor McGonagall that it was truly I who caused you to be late to Transfiguration."

Harry looked at the nearest clock, discovering that he was already late. "Oh no!" He began to run, with Professor Dumbledore laughing gently in the background.

And so the day went on. Martha McGonagall, the Transfiguration teacher, was a strict old witch with a mean streak; she did not hesitate to take away house points, even from the Gryffindors, despite being their Head of House. Her Gryffindor-Ravenclaw first-year class respected her, but did not like her; she was a difficult teacher to like. Professor McGonagall rarely smiled, and her lessons were not at all fun. It would be long before they started to actually transfigure things; now, they were learning the textures and attributes of materials, so that they could duplicate them. Harry knew that transfiguration was one of the most powerful wizardly abilities, but at the moment the lessons consisted of staring at lumps of glass, metal, rock, salts, sand and water.

The English teacher was Professor Quartus Morgan, a strict, brown-haired, middle-aged man who showed the first-years various pieces of wizardly literature. Except for the individual books which they were studying—wizardly ones, not Muggle ones—it was identical to Muggle English lessons. Generally, English was regarded as the easiest subject, since most of the Hogwarts students had already been taught all about it by private tutors, and Harry's primary school lessons were just as effective. (There were no primary schools in the wizardly world; everybody who wanted such education had to hire a private tutor, and all the good ones were expensive.)

Professor Binns was also very good. Like in Harry's primary school, History (or, in this case, History of Magic) numbered among most people's favourite subjects. At the moment the first-years were learning about the witches and wizards of Ancient Rome, who had invented staffs (primitive, unwieldy wands), and their various conflicts with Asian, African and Germanic wizards. Professor Binns's teaching style was dynamic and interesting; he regularly quizzed the students on what they had learnt, and never just read from the textbook, Bathilda Bagshot's _A History of Magic_, which he hated and would never use at all.

The Latin teacher was Aurora Sinistra, a dark-haired young witch. Her lessons were at a demanding pace, however; within the very first term, Harry was expected to learn hundreds of words and the whole grammar structure for three cases of nouns and three tenses of four verb conjugations. _What_, Harry often wondered, _is a conjugation?_ Professor Sinistra was kind enough to help people with their learning, but if they made mistakes about anything, they were tested about it in their free time until they got it right.

In Herbology, under Pomona Sprout, the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had to look after lots of strange plants and fungi, with limited success. Nevertheless Professor Sprout explained her subject, and Harry learnt quite a lot about the uses of magical fungi and plants, even if he was poorer at the practical sessions. She was popular and very capable.

Magical Defence was taught by Remus Lupin, a lean, muscular, dirty blonde-haired wizard who wore shabby-looking grey robes. The Hufflepuff and Gryffindor students learnt the names and features of the many subspecies of Grindylows and of vampires, though the only advice which they were given about these creatures was "run away fast". It was rumoured that Professor Lupin had fought in the Purity War, and Harry could believe it; he was a calm man with a hint of steel, ever-ready to pounce on students cursing each other in the corridors.

On the first day of lessons, the Gryffindor first-years were summoned by Professor McGonagall, who did something to the white Hogwarts crests on their robes so that they turned into the red crests of Gryffindor House. Harry soon found that house affiliation was highly significant. He soon learnt all about the first-year Gryffindor boys.

Neville Longbottom was from a Wizengamot family; he never mentioned his parents unless somebody else raised the subject, though he did say that they were alive. Neville now lived with his grandmother, who was something of a traditionalist, though she heartily disapproved of blood purism. Ron Weasley was descended from another Wizengamot family through his father, a whimsical man whose bizarre obsession with Muggle machines was only excused in high social circles by his enormous wealth. Ron had five brothers and a sister, and his mother was apparently overprotective. Seamus Finnigan was a pure-blood, as he took great delight in saying, who was descended from an old wizardly family; however, his family was not very rich (and therefore not on the Wizengamot), so he had had to get into Hogwarts by scholarship; only a quarter of the positions at Hogwarts were for people with scholarships, so those were hotly contested, and only the most intelligent people could get in. Finnigan was definitely intelligent, but his cleverness was exceeded only by his meanness.

On Friday at the end of their first week, Harry, Neville and Ron went down to the Great Hall without getting lost, a landmark occasion for them. "Which lessons do we have today?" Harry asked Ron, who had not lost his timetable.

"Double Potions with Slytherin, unfortunately," said Ron. "Fred and George—" Fred and George were Ron's twin older brothers, both of whom were also in Gryffindor— "say that it is an unpleasant experience." He did not say anything more.

The Potions classrooms were underground; the area had been used as dungeons before Hogwarts had been converted from an ordinary medieval castle to a school of magic. It was cold here, so everybody had brought their cloaks, which provided an array of colours everywhere; unlike for robes, there was no fixed cloak-colour. Like Professor Flitwick, Professor Snape began by taking the register. The trouble started immediately.

"Lavender Brown!" called Professor Snape.

"I am surprised," drawled Malfoy, "that you dare to speak a wizardly name on your Muggle tongue, blood traitor."

"You will be silent," Professor Snape hissed.

"I do not believe I will," said Malfoy lazily. "What will you do, curse me? If so, you'll be thrown out before you can blink twice; our Wizengamot is not so corrupt as to refrain from punishing a child abuser."

Professor Snape stood up next to the blackboard. "You _dare_ to call me an abuser?"

Malfoy's voice became tight with fury. "You dare to speak in the presence of those whom you betrayed? Each Knight swore an oath to the White King, and you betrayed your comrades, those who—"

Professor Snape said levelly, "A week's detention, Malfoy, in the Forbidden Forest at night. Now be a good boy unless you want more."

Malfoy yawned. "If you must bluff, please do it well. What sort of—"

"I do not care," said Snape with savage glee. "And yes, I know that it holds vampires. Yet the Forbidden Forest is a standard Hogwarts punishment, albeit archaic—and do you honestly think that your father will bother to raise political trouble about a detention which you got at school? You underestimate the importance of the Wizengamot: no Wizengamot member is interested in things such as detentions."

Malfoy's eyes widened, as though only just realising that Snape was being serious. "You would not—"

"Oh yes, I would indeed," hissed Snape. "Now it is a matter of whether YOU would like it to be two weeks. If so, I am happy to oblige…" He gave a crocodilian smile.

Mutinously, Malfoy sat down. Harry grinned behind his hand.

"Excellent. Potter, what are you smiling about? Insubordination. That will be one point from Gryffindor."

Harry's mouth dropped. "But Professor—"

"Two, now. Be quiet, imbecile. Do not expect any special treatment from me, as you are getting from all the other teachers. I know that you are no hero, just an attention-seeking brat."

Harry's eyebrows rose. _Why is he treating me as if I've just eaten his kitten?_ He hadn't received any 'special treatment' from any of the staff except Professor Dumbledore, who technically didn't count as a teacher.

The register was completed with no additional trouble. Snape then said, "Turn to page 4 of your textbook. Make the potion. Now do not bother me any longer, or you will regret it."

For the rest of the lesson, Snape swept around the room, insulting all the students in the classroom and taking away house points for any excuse that he could find. He never said "You were breathing too loudly", but he did use everything up to that point. Despite Malfoy's comments, Snape appeared to hate blood purists and egalitarians alike. It was as if he were deliberately trying to be unpopular.

Harry left the lesson with two strong feelings. First, he was very grateful that Pulchra was currently stretching her wings, flying around the castle: Snape would almost certainly have reacted badly to her.

Secondly, he absolutely hated Severus Snape.


End file.
